The Image Top 100 Books of the Century

'Come, sir, cannot I prevail upon you to go to sea?
A man-of-war is the very thing for a
philosopher, above all in the Mediterranean: there
are the birds, the fishes--I could promise you
some monstrous strange fishes--the natural phenomena,
the meteors, the chance of prize-money.
For even Aristotle would have been moved by prize-money....
'

'A ship must be a most instructive theatre for an
inquiring mind....'

'Prodigiously instructive, I do assure you, Doctor.'

-Jack Aubrey
convincing Stephen Maturin to ship out with him (Patrick O'Brian,
Master
and Commander)

Like most, I first learned of Patrick O'Brian's excellent series of
naval adventures in the pages of the New York Times Book Review.
There, on January
6, 1991, Richard Snow wrote that the Aubrey and Maturin books were
: "...the best historical novels ever written." This statement is
not as jarring now as it was then. We've grown accustomed to seeing
rows of O'Brian's books on store shelves and millions have joined what
was once an exclusive cult, but at the time Snow was writing the novels
were still a well-kept secret, despite the fact that O'Brian had then been
writing them for over twenty years. At any rate, like any good little
trend-sucking dilettante, I rushed out to find the first book in the series,
Master
and Commander, read it as quickly as possible, and was well and truly
stumped.

I liked the characters, found the detailed portrayal of life aboard
ship to be extremely interesting, and enjoyed much of the humor of the
book. But there was something really curious and elusive about the
storytelling. In the first place, the heroes are mere observers of
the climactic sea battle, having been captured earlier, which seemed especially
curious for an adventure story. Even more disconcerting was the sense
that I lacked much of the background information that the author expected
the reader to bring to the novel. It seemed as if O'Brian expected
you to already be familiar with much of the early 19th century naval terminology,
with the intricacies of the Napoleonic Wars, and with the culture, customs
and language of the day. It was like listening to a comedian and
only understanding one out of every two or three jokes--you titter nervously
and you can follow along thanks to context, but it's a tad humiliating.
I did like it enough to read the next though, Post Captain, and
as I did, the joke finally dawned on me.

Patrick O'Brian writes these novels so that they could be read, understood,
and enjoyed by the characters who populate them. The reason that
they so effectively transport us to another time and place is because they
seem to have been written there and then. His mission here is not
to explain that epoch to us, but to present it for our consideration, nearly
unadorned by modern sensibilities. He writes as if he were actually
a contemporary of his heroes and the books have the quality, not of historical
novels at all, but instead of classic tales newly rediscovered. Thanks
to this unusual style, O'Brian is more often compared to Jane Austen than
to C. S. Forester.

I don't mean to mislead anyone; the books aren't for all tastes and,
even if you love them, O'Brian's manner can be frustrating--you sometimes
wish you had an interpreter. But once you figure out what he's doing,
if you accept the technique, you're in for a real treat. The writing
is outstanding. The setting is endlessly interesting. Aubrey,
the bluff and hearty sea captain, and Maturin, the vulpine doctor and spy,
make for a classic pairing of steadfast opposites, in the tradition of
Holmes and Watson. It is not easy reading but it is rewarding and
once you read a couple, you'll be hooked. And be warned, before he
died earlier this year, O'Brian had completed twenty novels in the series,
so you'll be hooked for a good long time.

Comments:

Nice review - you've hit the nail on the head re O'Brian's style of writing for a contemporary of Aubrey and Maturin.

I grew up in Portsmouth, and every school trip was to HMS Victory and every school project was on ships of the line and Nelson. So I already had an idea what a mizzen mast and a fore topgallant were when I came to the series, but nonetheless I frequently found myself quite lost as the jargon flows mercilessly.

Hornblower is possibly more exciting, but Aubrey and Maturin are more rewarding.